


a sweeter name (was never spoken)

by bladeCleaner



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Character of Color, Codependency, Explicit Consent, F/M, Female Character of Color, Flashbacks, Non Monogamy, Pining, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-03-08 22:39:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13468050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bladeCleaner/pseuds/bladeCleaner
Summary: Canon divergence from S3M48. Spoilers for all 3 seasons.Runner Five, after their Moonchild episode, decides to go with Simon.“I don’t want forgiveness. I...want...to...understand.” Every word pushing through her lips like an agony. The next sentence is easier, if her face is contorted even more. “And I want to go with you.”





	1. Chapter One

She’s standing there, shaking like loose leaf in wintry winds, when they finally get to the van. Part of him wants to hold her. The other part wants to slap her again, if only to see the warmth come back to her, in her eyes, the fire. He wants a lot of things. Getting what he wants has never worked out for him.

Amelia gets into the van. He looks at Five, leaden eyes and paler than he’s ever seen her. One of the good guys, reduced to this after mind control. Jesus.

He finishes saying, “Listen, Five, it’s gonna be okay. You might not forgive yourself, but they will - ”

“Stop.”

He stops.

“I have a favor to ask you.”

“You might have run out of favors from us, Five. I can only save your life so many times.”

“I know.” She’s gritting out the words like speaking is painful, like even asking for his help is excruciating, and it probably is for her, but now he’s curious.

“What do you want from me?”

“I don’t want forgiveness. I...want...to...understand.” Every word pushing through her lips like an agony. The next sentence is easier, if her face is contorted even more. “And I want to go with you.”

* * *

 

**A LIFETIME AGO**

She’s drawing out the vestiges of the golden light on the roof, pencil and sketchbook in hand. There hasn’t been a sunset as beautiful as this in a long while – set the sky in aching gold. Her pencil now loosely dangles in her hand, when a minute ago she’d been scribbling and clutching it like her weapon.

A person shifts behind her and she whirls around, expecting Janine, but the sun’s in her eyes. She blocks it out with her hand and that’s when he recognizes her.

“Five!” he exclaims.

“Three?” she replies, squinting at him through the gilt gold veil casting everything the same color.

“What’re you doing here? I thought I was the only one with special Janine’s farmhouse-roof privileges.” he says, jovially, if a little suspicious.

She smiles faintly. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, playing coy, are you? Smart. But don’t worry. Our, uh, thing, as Sam would put it, is pretty much an open secret across Abel at this point. Unless I’ve got competition to worry about.” He waggles his eyebrows at her.

She doesn’t acknowledge this scandalous aside, just continues to draw as if he wasn’t there. He plops down next to her, uninvited, and grins at her. He wants to babble some more at her, just to annoy her, anything to get a reaction out of her, and he supposes that’s his type. Drawing out hard-to-read women. Except he’s already got Jenny.

He takes the moment to examine Five. No one knows her real name, and Jack and Eugene have officially put bets on it. The pool’s pretty big, and he would love to win the pot.

He’d put one down for Catherine. Catherine Laboure – a Catholic saint of silence.

She catches him looking, and arches an eyebrow. She’s a quiet one, Five, he thinks, but her expressions say everything. She’s short, Chinese with tanned skin (from all that running, and little sunblock) and she has a beauty mark on her chin. She smiles a lot, and when she does, it lends her something, like she’s always secretly laughing but never wants to let you in on the joke. She’s run ten missions so far, and is gaining a reputation for being silent but steady. He can already tell Sam likes her. But no one knows anything about her other than that she likes Jack and Eugene, and he hears she sometimes likes karaoke nights. She’s no fitness model stunner. But she’s a mystery. And Simon’s always been a sucker for a mystery, especially if she’s cute.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like it if I retained my roof privileges instead of getting kicked out because Janine’s boyfriend can’t keep it in his eye sockets,” she says, deadpan, and he starts.

“Oh. Yikes. Sorry, didn’t mean to – I spaced out there. It’s just, anyone ever tell you you’re an enigma, Five?”

“Anyone tell you you’re a raging flirt, Three?”

He laughs, half-shocked. Looks like the quiet facade is hiding a snarker, also just his type. “Oh, touche! She gives as good as she gets, I can respect that. What’re you drawing, anyway?”

He sneaks a peek at her sketch and she bats him away. “Aw, c’mon, Five. You really going to be a mysterious artist, too?”

She smirks.

“Okay, then tell me something about yourself.”

“I’m currently annoyed with a runner on this roof.”

He places his hand over his heart, faux wounded. “I’m devastated. But seriously, c’mon.”

“How does Janine put up with you?” she says, slightly charmed despite herself, despite his obnoxious badgering.

“Fine, I’ll share something if you share something.”

She thinks it over. “You first.”

“I once dyed my school pool purple. Your turn.”

Her eyebrows shoot up, skeptical. “Uh, no. You’re going to have to elaborate.”

“You know all those fancy bath bombs we used to have that dyed your bathtub glitter and colors? I stole a whole bunch of me gran’s favorite ones, and dropped them in the school pool in secondary school for a prank. She absolutely never let me forget that.”

She grins, lightning-quick, there and gone. The sky’s getting darker now, blues replacing fiery reds and oranges, and it’s a eerie twilight.

“I was the lead in a punk rock band.”

“No!” he said, eyes widening, voice alight with glee. “No, that’s too bloody great. You couldn’t have been. That’s brilliant.”

“Why?” she says, challenging him. “Too quiet? Too mysterious?”

“Too...you,” he says, and she makes as if to shove him over the roof. “Okay, I need proof.”

“Come to karaoke night, then,” she says. “And it’s your turn.”

“Mm, okay, but for the next one, I want to know your real name.” Her expression shutters closed, and he knows he’s gambled too early. Damn it.

“No.”

“Can I guess?”

“ _No_.”

“Oh, you’re no fun, Five.”

Her expression says, _at what point did I advertise being fun?_ And he pretends to give up.

For now.

The stars start dropping into view behind them, and the sound of his laughter isn’t as unwelcome as he thinks as they start climbing down back into reality, no longer suspended in the sky.

* * *

 

**NOW.**

“Did Moonchild’s mind control knock more screws loose in your head than I thought? Did I just hear you, Runner Five, hero of Abel, say that they want to come with me? You want to _defect?_ I told you, they’ll forgive you, and they’ll be better for you than me-”

“Simon! What’s taking you two so long?” Amelia yells from the driver’s seat. It’s midday, and they’ve got a long drive.

“Give me a minute, chrissakes, this is important!”

“Time is resources, Simon!”

“Oh, give it a rest, Amy!”

“Five minutes or I’m leaving you both in this madhouse, assets bedamned!”

She’s shaking, still, but now she looks angry. “What do you care? What do you care if Abel loses its golden runner? As a matter of fact, why do you even care about saving me so much?”

He’s taken aback before he snaps, “You’re so _freaking_ ungrateful-”

She shakes her head. “Sorry. Look, I’m _sorry_. I just – I can’t go back there right now. I’m not...defecting. I just need to lay low for a while. With you. If you’ll have me. Please.”

He never thought he’d hear Abel’s favorite runner beg. Beg _him_. For anything.

Despite his better judgment, despite everything, despite the self-preserving voice in his head that gave him immortality and is also screaming no, he says, “Oh, for – God damn it, yes. Yes. A few days. That’s all. And I reserve the right to change my mind and drive you straight back to those uppity do-gooders the second I do.”


	2. Chapter Two

It has to be said: the look on her face when he says yes is deeply gratifying. His insides are churning, his brain is a cassette-on-repeat saying how bad of an idea this is, but how relieved she looks feels like a victory. It means someone wants to come with him. _Him_ , and she might just be using him to escape but it’s Five, fallen off her pedestal. It hurts and helps to see her like this. To know that out of everyone, she picked him at this moment, not Abel, and not Sam bloody Yao.

Amy, of course, isn’t too happy. They hiss a conversation over the dashboard of the van, engine turned up so Five can’t hear.

“Are you out of your _mind_? We’re on thin enough ice with Abel as it is and now you want to kidnap their star runner because you’ve suddenly gotten all flipping _sentimental_? Si, have some sense. I picked you because you’re supposed to be more self-preserving than this, if not any smarter.”

“I didn’t – I’m not kidnapping her, am I? She _asked_ ,” he says, a tad smug, a lot conflicted but still pushing on, “she asked, and c’mon, Amy, it’s not like it wouldn’t be useful to find out what Moonchild’s told her, right? Some information to sell off to the highest bidder? Tell me that isn’t appealing, and I’ll tell you you’re a bad liar. Besides, you can use this as leverage with Janine to get more supplies, maybe extra cans for every update she gets?”

She reconsiders. If it’s one thing Amelia Spens is, it’s practical, greedy, selfish. He can already see the wheels turning in her head to flip this situation to her advantage.

“Fine,” she says, reluctantly. “But she’s your charge, not mine. I’m not babysitting for free.”

Simon’s passenger door rips open. “Good,” Five says, evenly, “because I didn’t ask you to.” Amy rolls her eyes.

Five looks between them both. “And I have no intention of third wheeling whatever villainous Bonnie and Clyde thing you have going on.” She signals for Simon to get out of the van, and slams the door shut.

Amy eyes Simon suspiciously. “Where are you going to take her?”

“I’ve got an idea.” He says vaguely.

She sighs. “Do you know what you’re doing, Simon?”

 _No._ “Yes,” he says.

She shakes her head, her eyes softening just a bit, and he’s studied her enough to know the difference. “I know you have...complicated emotions when it comes to Abel, and this runner particularly. Just don’t go soft on me now, Lauchlan.”

“And if I do?” he says, challenging her.

“Then for God’s sake don’t take me down with you, or you’ll find yourself needing a third face and a new partner-in-crime,” she says matter-of-factly. She hesitates for a moment, then says, “Were you and her – I know you and Janine had your thing, but it seems oddly like-”

“No. I mean, no. I mean- no. C’mon, Spens, you’re smarter than that,” He says quickly, jokes a little too fast. He gets out of the van before he gets any more incriminating than he already is.

He spots her a couple feet away, a figure against the sanitarium with her back facing him. She looks small, here, smaller than you’d think for someone who’d shot Van Ark out of the sky with a rocket launcher, smaller than a woman who’d single-handedly destroyed a flotilla. Her black ponytail, with its pink scrunchie, flowing in the wind, and her gold shoulders dotted with freckles peeking out of her standard issue tank top. It’s late spring. She has goosebumps on her arms. He steps towards her, and he can hear his nan in his head, calling him a sinner who has no right to corrupt someone like her. But she’s already corrupted, the scarlet’s on her hands, and he doesn’t really care to think of her as someone better than him right now. They’re the same, now. They’re the same.

She doesn’t start or turn around to look at him, just keeps looking at the nuthouse.

“C’mon, Five. I know it’s romantic, but we should get going before Moonchild or Abel sends reinforcements.”

She gives a cold, humorless laugh. “You always did joke at the worst moments.”

“It’s what you love about me, don’t deny it,” he says easily. “Unless you want me to get real with you, like I was earlier today-”

“Where are we going? One of your gyms?” she asks.

“Nah,” he says, though he’s surprised she remembers. “Been saving this place up for a rainy day. Guess that’s you, love.”

She looks at him, and her expression has been completely wiped. Her face is as placid as a lake in the bleak midwinter. But her eyes are full of something indescribable. They hold him in place.

“Thank you, Simon.”

Then she looks away.

* * *

 

**A LIFETIME AGO**

At lunch, he starts going through a list of names.

“Maria.”

“No.”

“May.”

“No.”

“Marrrrrrr...garet.”

“No.”

Jack and Eugene pass by, and one of them says, “Have you tried Ben?” and snickers.

“Will one of you please get this headcase off _my_ case?” She calls after them, and they laugh. He nudges her with his shoulder as she’s polishing off a can of beans and rice. She usually takes her breaks with Sam or Sara, but this time Runner 8’s on a mission, and so it’s just she and him at the meal area, with the benches made out of metal sheeting and sawn off barrels.

“Oh come on, you don’t hate me as much as you say you do. You’re like Janine that way. Prickly, but sweet.” He says, giving her the ol’ patented Simon Charm Beam.

“You like _country music_. As a punk rock metalhead, I’m pretty sure it’s written in my DNA to hate you.” She replies, wholly unaffected. Damn. She’s good.

“If I find something we have in common, will you tell me your name?”

She rolls her eyes.

“That’s not a no!”

She spots Jody coming in from the showers, and waves her over, spotting an easy buffer. Unlucky for her, Four’s part of the betting pool too.

“Hey, Four, help me find something Five and I have in common so she’ll tell me her real name.”

“You and Five? Uh, I think that’s gonna be hard, Three, but I’ll try and help.” Jody taps her chin. “Um, you’re both Runners at Abel Township?”

“Nope! Too boring. Something personal, not professional.”

“Five’s pretty tight lipped, Simon, I feel like-”

“Five’s also right here,” She interrupts, deadpan. “What can I say? I’m a private person.”

Sara, come back from her mission, appears holding her own tin of can and beans, behind Jody. “That’s why you and me get along so well, Five,” she says, a chuckle in her voice. “Three, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“Also, you’re really guessing all these white names? Thought you’d know better, a runner of color yourself,” Five teases. “I _am_ Chinese.”

“Oh, damn, you’re right, crap, sorry about that.” He says. He’s Latinx, maybe indigenous, but his nan never told him much. Just hit him with that Catholic guilt stick and made him go to white Catholic schools, as though it’d teach him character instead of getting in trouble all the time for being the brown boy with a target painted on his back. “Shit. Should I ask Sam for help?”

“Sam doesn’t know,” Five says, looking at her beans.

“Sam doesn’t know? Wow, so no one knows? Except the Major, since she’s read your files, but that’d hardly be a priority to send a message to her,” Jody says.

Simon looks at Five with pleading brown eyes. “A hint? Please?”

She shakes her head, laughing. “Oh, country boy. I’m not a puzzle to be figured out.”

On the trail of her laughter, he gives a huff. “Boy? I’m pretty sure I’m older than you! Wait, oy! Stop walking away!”

–

Amy, in top form, refuses to drop off supplies until he tells her where he’s going with Five. She eyes him when he tells her and they spend an awkward half an hour in the van as Amelia drives in an evasive pattern, until they’re out of Abel and Moonchild’s range. She drops them both halfway to their destination, tells Si to “behave, or actually, don’t,” and drives off in a cloud of dust.

Five eyes the forested path Amelia’s dropped them off on warily.

“Don’t worry, Five, if I’d brought you out here to kill you I would’ve picked somewhere a little less obvious,” he says. “Follow me. Amy’ll be back in a while with supplies, pretty sure the place is raided by now, if it isn’t crawling with zoms.”

“Where are we going?” She asks, the first words she’s said since she got into the van.

“Oh, but that’d be telling,” he says jovially, and grins at her. She glares at him like he’s a maniac, which, fair enough, but he’s a maniac she’s chosen to trust, more fool her, he thinks.

“ _Simon_ -”

“We’re using real names now, are we? That’s how I know you’re serious,” he says, then looks at her face, scared and determined and he knows there’s still a killer underneath, “Alright, alright, I’ll tell you. It’s my cabin, the one I would get away to on long weekends.”

He starts to run, and he hears her follow him. The breeze whistles in his ear and he feels like laughing, feels like whooping, because it’s so weird to hear her follow him and not plan to kill him or bring him back to Abel. It’s all so surreal. He feels like something’s shifting, into place or out of it, her following him into darkness or leading him out of it, a tectonic movement under his skin and feet.

“You wanted out, Five?” he says, turning his head to look at her, grinning, words yelled over the wind. “I’m getting you out!”

–

**AFTER DARE. BEFORE SHE KNEW.**

“Three?”

He doesn’t look up. He is surprised when her voice comes through his door. His room’s trashed. He wants to lie down forever. He wants to die. He’d blamed Sam, he’d blamed everyone involved, except for himself.

_My boy, would you like to live forever?_

_No one’s going to get hurt, are they?_

_Do I look like I would hurt a fly, Mr. Lauchlan?_

_This is for the greater good._

Janine had come to check on him earlier and he’d wanted to confess everything, tell her everything, and he almost did and she’d been so sweet and kissed him on the cheek and told him to never, ever, ever try anything as stupid and reckless as that again or she’d throw him in the brig. He didn’t say a word and cried after she left. He didn’t deserve her. He was betraying her, and he was going to keep on doing it. He wasn’t worth an inch of her. Not one iota.

He's lying in bed next to a can of SPAM feeling utterly sorry for himself, waiting for Five to go away, until she knocks again.

“Three? Simon?”

He doesn’t say anything. There's a soft thud on the door, like she’d pressed her forehead against it. He doesn't get up.

“I just...”

He doesn’t expect her to have the words. She hardly ever has any, on the field. He’s too numb to be touched, though he's dangerously close to it. He knows to her he's just some annoying flirt.

It's late, later at night than he’d expect, when he looks at the clock. He hadn’t shown for dinner. He expects she's waiting outside his door with some canned food and conciliatory platitudes, and he just doesn’t have the stomach for either. He wants to be miserable alone.

“I used to...shit, I’m not doing this right.” She says, sighing. She sounds like she's right next to the door.

Despite himself, he says, “You’re a real comfort in these hard times, darling.” His voice is throaty and raspy from crying and disuse.

She chuckles softly, muffled by the wood. “You always joke at the worst moments, don’t you?

“It’s my specialty.”

“Until today.”

“Sorry I wasn’t up to your _standards_ , Five,” he sneers.

“I used to punch glass windows with my fists when I was angry,” she says, suddenly, and he hears her back hit the door. He imagines her sliding down onto the floor outside, arms resting on her bent knees as she sits and talks. “It made me feel like I could control something, even if what I was angry at couldn’t be changed. That’s where some of the scars on my knuckles come from.”

He’d noticed them. White, like snowflakes, on her hands.

“And the rest?”

“I’ve punched many an idiot in my time. And I’ll do that to you, Simon Lauchlan, if you run off like that again, throw your life away on some fucking _fetch quest_ and I know Janine already threatened you but this isn’t a threat, it’s a promise.”

He’s never heard her swear. He thinks he likes it.

“You saved my life, and Sara’s, though, today. I won’t be ungrateful and not admit that. You’re part of the team. It’s a shitty pep talk I’m giving you, I know. My story doesn’t have a moral. It means we do stupid things when we hurt. But the point is I get it on some level. It used to make me feel good, that pain, to be able to control that, and what you did today-” She makes a frustrated noise. “Oh, fuck’s sake, Simon, would you open the door, I feel like I'm really making an idiot out of myself and this is the most I’ve said in months.”

He gets up and opens the door and finds her sitting on the floor looking at the opposite wall. “Sam’s rubbing off on you. Not the swearing bit, the rambling.”

She looks at him from her position on the floor and scrambles to get up. He’s never seen her so...normal.

“I’m with you, okay? That’s all I’m saying. We all are.”

He barely suppresses the urge to laugh in her face. Or start crying again. Whichever one.

Instead, he just nods.

He looks down at her hands, unwrapped. He gestures to them, as if saying _May I?_

She nods. He lifts them up in his own, looks at them.

“What made you stop punching windows?” He asks her.

She doesn’t miss a beat. “I started respecting myself too much to do that to myself. So should you.”

Make that the crying urge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> casual reminder that Simon Lauchlan is canonically brown and making him a white boy is racial erasure


	3. Chapter 3

The woods and sky start clicking into palettes of darker blues as their feet pound on the trails. Five doesn’t hear any moans, or groans, or screams; this area feels cordoned off, too perfect, and she braces herself for something – a helicopter to wheel out of the sky aimed at her forehead, or a zombie bear. God knows she’s borne worse horrors in the last year. God knows she’s done enough to deserve it, God knows between the both of them there’s a special place in Hell. But no catastrophe hits.

They arrive at the cabin, a beautifully built wooden structure, battered on the outside but sizeable and reinforced. There’s solar panels that line almost the entire roof, killing the rustic feel a little. More than enough space for one person, and she eyes Simon. Fitness factory emperor. Right. It’s so peaceful, so quiet, that for a moment she can imagine they’re back at Before – what she calls pre-Apocalypse times.

His voice breaks the illusion. “My home away from home. Wipe your shoes off before you come in, won’t you Five? S’only polite.”

His jovial behavior doesn’t fool her one bit, but it unnerves her. That he’s still not afraid of her. And disturbingly enough, that she isn’t afraid of him. There’s a lockpad at the entrance, and he taps it in easily.

“Why didn’t you come here after – after what happened? Instead of Dedlock territory?” She asks. He creaks open the door, and inside it’s- not at all what she pictured. It’s bare, minimal furniture, but still furnished. It still looks like it’s been maintained, the living room spacious with a navy rug, a hallway leading to a couple rooms and the kitchen with a kettle. A uselessly electric one, she guesses, but bless. She hesitates before the threshold, and he raises his eyebrows at her and wordlessly gestures her in.

“I stopped by a couple times, but I felt like I needed a more suitable locale to spend the rest of my eternal punishment,” he says lightly. “Too luxurious for a sinner like me, eh, Five? I bet that’s what you’re thinking. But not to worry. You’ll only have to suffer my presence till you get your sanity back.”

“I asked for this,” she says quietly. “I didn’t force myself.”

“Like I said, you’ve clearly gone insane.”

She pads into the room, scuffing her shoes on the – does that say welcome? – mat, and unlaces her shoes. Faded indigo daylight colors the whole room blue, and he goes over to the coffee table facing the couch and lifts up a lamp that lights up when he presses a button.

“Whole dang place runs on solar power,” he says proudly, “when I was running gyms, green energy got really big with the whole crowd. Thought it’d come in handy someday.”

“You really did save this place for a rainy day,” she muses, and he braces for the accusation, _and didn’t tell Abel about it,_ but none comes. She really must be tired.

“Yeah,” he says. “So, what now?”

The dreamlike way she drifts to the couch doesn’t escape his notice. She saunters forward, her guard down, and he supposes now would be the time to avail her of the idea that he’s going to comfort her and hit every tender spot of hers he can think of before her armor is up again. Only…

Plopping onto the couch, she groans and moves as if a body settling into its tomb, coated already with dust. Then she stretches and lazily sprawls across the grey upholstery, looking like a cat with her half lidded eyes.

“You must trust me by now,” he says, intending it to come out mocking but the words coming out soft, as if not to agitate her, “if you’re letting me see you like this. Or you’re just real banged up. Latter option sounds more likely.”

She yawns, and shakes her head.

“Fuck sleeping,” she says, anger and fear threaded through her voice. “Simon?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re real. Yes?”

He tightens his fists into balls, trying to resist the urge to just touch her. “I am, sweetheart. I am.”

“You must not hate me by now,” she says teasingly, punch-drunk, “To call me pet names like that.”

“I’ve never hated you.” He just hates himself. Easier that way.

“You’re a better liar than that, Si,” she says, laughing a little. “I know you are.”

“I might’ve waved a gun around, but that was never real,” he replies, irritated at how again she always throws him off-kilter, “I-”

“Put your silver tongue to use,” He hears the words and then his whole body is his heartbeat and he’s afraid he’s gone into cardiac arrest, he’s ceased to be anything but one throb into the next breath, to take her from one breath into another, then she says, “Tell me a story. I want to stay up.”

She’s going to give him a heart attack if she’s this accidentally sultry when tired. Fuck.

“Fake, or true?”

She pierces him with an inscrutable gaze. “Your choice.”

He’s halfway through a boring story about him and his grandmother before she’s fast asleep.

* * *

 

**BEFORE SHE KNEW. THE WEEK BEFORE HE DIED FOR THE FIRST TIME.**

He’s watching her draw, their legs dangling as they sit on the edge of the roof. Next to him, strands of hair have fallen out of her ponytail, Five colors in a sketch with color pencils from the rec center. Her face is all serious and full of concentration, and maybe it’s cute, that she has the same look on her face whenever they’re running together. Maybe, but you’d never hear him admit it.

“Hey.”

He looks away immediately, shame-faced at being caught staring, but she isn’t talking about that. “Why do you care so much about my name, anyway?”

He raises his eyebrows. “Maybe I just like a challenge.”

“It’s not you trying to-” she struggles with the words. “Look, I know what they say about me. That I don’t really have any friends except the dead runner who came back to life and I’m too quiet and mysterious, and if this is just you taking pity on me and trying to get me to open up-”

“Whoa, whoa, Five. No. No! What- why- why would you think that?”

“You’re popular,” she says quietly, looking at her sketchpad. She’s not coloring anymore and she hasn’t looked at him once. “And, okay, people talk. Around me. About me. When I don’t say anything it’s easier to blend into the background.”

“Then your ears are stuffed,” he says, realization dawning. She scoffs. “No, no, I’m serious! Are you deaf? You’re Runner Five, the bloody great hero who once jumped and mounted a freaking horse in one shot! You survived a helicopter crash, and the fall of Abel, and you’re still here. You run yourself ragged trying to get us new amenities every week. You don’t see how intimidating you are?”

She smiles a little, shocked at the speech. “You think I’m intimidating?”

“Babe, you’re terrifying.” He flashes her his wolf-like grin.

Her smile widens, and she even laughs. “I love hearing that from a man. No, really.”

“See? Case in point.”

She gives him a half-hearted glare, laughter dancing in her eyes like twin flames. “Also, you still haven’t answered my first question.”

“Maybe it’s because you never talk about yourself. Ever.”

“Fine, what do you want to know?” She says, and he does a double take.

“ _Really?_ You’ll answer anything?” He says, his tone laced with flirtatiousness.

“Within reason, you _perv._ ” She swats at him, and he laughs, dodging the hit, and inside secretly pleased he’s the only one who really gets to see her this way.

“What’s your favorite video game?”

“Okay, so...”

Apparently, she’s a video game geek. Or was, anyway. She had two brothers (and he notices she doesn’t talk about them much, or her family, if at all during the conversation) and she grew up playing Katamari Damacy and Kingdom Hearts with them, on an old borrowed PS2.

“You as a kid? How was that? Let me guess. You were...a spitfire, or the school gossip.”

“I was a quiet jock. But I could be loud when I was with friends. Isn’t that how it always is?”

“I’m loud regardless, love.”

“I know.”

“Um, _ouch_!”

“You were asking for that one.”

“I know, but still...”

They talk and laugh into the evening, and he almost forgets what he’s about to do soon. Meet up with Van Ark again soon. Until she asks about his grandmother again, and he’s stricken with the fear, the fear bobbing up in him always, _a boy meant for hell a boy meant for hell a sinner salted in sodom and gomorrah I will beat the devil from you if I have to, boy! you’d be better off dead-_

“Three? Three!” she’s waving his hand in front of him, and he shakes himself out of his stupor.

“Sorry. Got lost in memories for a moment.”

She gets a look on her face like she can see right through him and she says, “Sorry if I brought anything unpleasant up. We can talk about something else-”

“No, no, it’s fine. I just...didn’t think you’d care to hear about me, is all.”

“You idiot,” she says, without any heat to it. “You’re one of the few people I’ve actually talked to, you know that?”

“I thought you were just taking pity on me in my grief.” He says bitterly.

“Maybe. Maybe I was,” she says lightly. “But you make me laugh. And you’re actually fun, even if you can be a selfish, dramatic ass sometimes. And even if it’s kind of annoying you flirt with anyone regardless of the deadly situation and that helps, you know? Maybe I wanted to actually cheer you up. Or make you feel less alone.”

“I’m touched,” he says, voice strained, with gratitude or sadness he doesn’t know. “Didn’t know you cared so much.”

She turns away from him, hair hiding her face. “What can I say,” she says softly. “I’m full of surprises.”

 

* * *

 

**NOW. THE CABIN.**

The next morning, she takes him on a walk on the trail and tells him her blind spots in combat. Then she asks him if the place has an arms cache.

“I’m sorry, okay, and you want me to _what with them?_ ” he asks, flabbergasted.

“I asked if you had any weapons. That’s all. I don’t want you to do anything...necessarily.” She won’t look at him.

“Yes, I do, but I- you just told me how to disarm you in a fight. That’s- is there- is there another reason you wanted to come with me? I’m not- what is this, Five?”

“I’m _dangerous_ , Simon.”

He flinches. She watches him impassively. He gets it, now. He gets it.

“And you- you thought I-”

“If I went mad again, I trust you to...end it. Who knows what side effects I could suffer after being under her control? You brought me out once. That was lucky. You, and _only_ you-”

“You-you’re insane. And I can’t. Didn’t you hear me tell you I can’t shoot my friends in cold blood? That’s not who I am.”

“You’d be doing me a service if you did,” she says, calmly. He stares at her like she’s a lunatic. “This isn’t about killing me, it’s about honoring what I want, and I know-”

“What about Jenny? Or Sam? Or anybody else at Abel Township-”

“You really think they’d shoot me? Sam tried to talk me down when I was wielding an axe, they don’t have the guts, and I know _you do_!” She yells. “Or are you a fucking coward like they all say? Huh? Huh, Simon?”

“I can’t!” He roars, shocking her, and she steps back. His frustration palpable. “I can’t, Five, don’t ask me that. You might not care enough about me, and you think it’s fine, Simon can hang that sword around his neck for you, Simon’s the bloody traitor, it’s fine if he kills the golden Runner Five and Abel can just hate me even more, won’t they? I’m just expendable enough to carry that guilt for the rest of my Goddamned life?”

She looks like he’s slapped her. She’s silent for a few moments, her throat working. When her voice comes out it’s hoarse. “Simon, that isn’t what I meant, I never thought-

“Yeah, you didn’t,” he says slowly, silkily. “You thought you could just leave me behind here with your blood on your hands and you’d be absolved, but no deal. You mean something to people. I’m not going to take that away from them, no matter how much of a villain you all think I am. You called me a coward, but that was your cowardice, Five, not mine – face up to it. I told you, didn’t I? Face up.” 

She sits like a coiled snake, every muscle of her body taut. 

“You already have their forgiveness,” He says bitterly. “Don’t throw it away to be some martyr. Fuck. _You_ don’t want to be forgiven? I’ll trade places with you, Five.”

“You selfish bastard,” she hisses and he gives as good back, “You’re calling me selfish? You want me to _kill you-_ ”

“Didn’t seem like a problem when Archie died.” 

The blade in his gut twists exquisitely, and he almost feels at his ribs for the wet rub of scarlet. She goes silent, mercifully, at the expression on his face. He feels the venom rising at the back of his throat, but he gulps it down. He’s so fucking tired of fighting. 

“Don’t you get it?” He says softly. “I won’t have another innocent person on my hands, Five.” _Especially not you._

“I’m no innocent.”

“And you’re plenty self-flagellating to boot, but, that’s not my _point_. You’re _good,_ ” he says, raw, “Don’t you get it? You’re the real deal. Not me. I’ve taken more good things out of the world than put back into it, I won’t do that with you.”

A stunned silence follows. Her lips part, slightly, and unconsciously his eyes dart down to catch the movement, but what’s more prescient is her eyes, large with something he can’t place. He wants to clap his hand over his mouth, he’d said it and blown it, she had to realize it by now. She had to.

* * *

 

**THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD**

 

“I don’t know how long it was before I realized it wasn’t ending. I wasn’t dying. I don’t think I can anymore. How funny is that? I got exactly what I wanted, and all it cost was everything that mattered. It was too late by the time I knew. My left hand was gone, and my face. Anyway, look at me, rabbitting on when there’s a Dedlock checkpoint up ahead. You can be sneaky, can’t you, Five? You and me, we can sneak past together. Just like old times, yeah? Just like old times.”

Her face twists when he laughs like he used to, and she wants to- hug him? Slap him? She doesn’t know which anymore. It’s surreal. Seeing him again, after everything.

“I used to think I was so perfect. The body beautiful, that was me. All those days at the gym, the tanning salon. I even had my chest waxed once. None of it mattered, though. It didn’t stop what was going on inside, where the gym and the tan couldn’t touch.

...And what about you, Five? Did it give you a little pang, the tiniest little twinge when you heard I’d turned to the dark side? No, I don’t think so. You all knew it. You all sensed it. What I’m really like. Wicked to the core! That’s what my gran told me when I was eleven and she caught me sneaking a fag outside the school gate. “Ripe with sin!” she’d say. That’s what you could all see. The sin just emanating off me, like evil B.O.”

He’s talking like a rattle-gun, not letting her getting a word in edge-wise, and she can see why. She doesn’t say a single word to him, not until he tells her, desperately, to go. She turns away from him, then turns back.

“What are you waiting for?” he says angrily, his face twisted even more ugly than before.

“It hurt,” she says simply.

“What did?”

“Your betrayal. Your leaving. I don’t know. But don’t act like it wasn’t fucking difficult. Don’t act like we just threw you away after a mistake. Don’t act like it wasn’t painful. Fuck you, Simon Lauchlan. You don’t get to-” She turns away. “Forget it. I’ll take your information, I’ll leave you out of it, and you can keep on feeling sorry for yourself.”

 

* * *

 

**NOW.**

 

She says, voice strained, “I’m touched. I didn’t know you cared that much.”

He gives her a weak smile. “You know, you’re the only one who knows how I died? Or didn’t. You know what I mean. And it’s not like I would’ve done what I did, chasing you down while you were tripping, for just anyone.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Um, sorry?”

“Why do you keep helping me? Every time I think you’re just- irredeemable, you go and do and say...Simon, was everything I hallucinated...was some of it real?”

He knows exactly what she’s talking about, and he turns away immediately. “We should go back inside.”

“Simon, I just, I remember you saying...”

“It’s just your imagination. I didn’t say much. Can we please get back before we attract any shamblers?” He says, curt. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want the hope blooming in his chest anymore than it already is, the truth he’s been trying to hide that he let slip when he was trying to bring her back from the edge.

“I’ll always come for you, Runner Five. Run with me. Isn’t that what you said? Or was I just dreaming?”

The words, spoken aloud in her soft voice, make him stop. _Simon, just lie to her. C’mon. You’ve lied to her so many times already, to everyone, this will be easy. You can do it. Say it. Just say it! SAY IT!_

“You were just dreaming,” he says, teeth gritted, strain on his new face showing but at least he’s not looking at her. “I don’t remember... _anything_...like that.”

“Prove it,” she says angrily. “Say it. Say you don’t- say you’ll kill me, if you have to. Look me in the eye and say it.”

“Five,” he says, voice trying to hold steady, “You know I can’t do that. Just...just drop it, alright? Please. Look, I even asked nicely.” He waits, and when she says nothing, he breaks off into a jog and she follows behind him.

He doesn’t hear her say, quietly, to herself, “You coward.”

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive critique welcome! I haven't done this in a year and a half. But this couple. Seriously, this couple. So fraught. So absolutely fraught. Also, I haven't listened to Seasons 4-6, so don't spoil me, please.


End file.
